


wolf at the door

by JeanSouth



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 22:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanSouth/pseuds/JeanSouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atsushi was fearless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wolf at the door

Once upon a time there was man, barely into adulthood, called Murasakibara Atsushi. He was tall, taller than almost anyone around him, and his big hands could pluck apples off trees with no effort at all. Atsushi always wore red, and no one ever knew why, but because of his size, no one dares ask. Truly, he was a gentle soul filled with only the wish to live quietly and lazily. 

“Atsushi,” His mother said one day, watching him come home with a dozen pastries and his arms full of fruit. “I’ve brought home a basket that we’ll fill it with fruit and bread, and you can bring it to your grandmother in the black forest.”

The black forest, as it was, was truly not that black at all. In Atsushi’s opinion, it was a very vibrant green, with flecks of white here and there where thin birches grew tall and spread their branches wide. 

Because of their irrational delicacy, Atsushi had also never learned fear. From childhood and up, he’d always been big, and the villagers hadn’t scolded him (though he was besides big, also a good child, too lazy to cause trouble). He truly had never tried it on for size.

“Okay,” He agreed quietly, hanging the basket from his arm. His pants were a deep red, matching the red hoodie that he pulled up over his soft lavender hair (which was far too long for a boy, but no one was willing to confront him about it). “I’ll be back soon.”

The path into the village was well cobbled at first, with sunlight patching in through the trees above. Noise followed him on his way; children playing and the noise of men working. The sweet scent of pies teased him now and then.

As the noise faded, so did the light. Trees twined their branches closer together overhead, casting the path in shadows as it turned from stone to bare earth to vines crawling everywhere.

“What do we have here?” A voice called from behind him, leering and smug. When he turned, a handsome (actually quite close to pretty) man was leaning against a white birch tree, watching him with eyes full of a meaning he didn’t understand. The man had two soft black ears poking from hair a similar colour, and a thick, fluffy black tail casually twining downwards. His pants were black and tattered, while his shirt was nonexistent. “Won’t you lower your red hood and show me your face?”

The creature grinned, pushing away from the tree with hands tipped in short, fine claws. When Atsushi lowered his hood, it laughed joyously.

“I’m Murasakibara Atsushi,” Atsushi offered, having never been told the stories of wolves and the dangers that came with them when one wandered the black forest; his instinct didn’t scream at him to run.

“Himuro Tatsuya,” The wolf offered, slinking closer to him in a gait that was like one slick movement. His ears tickled Atsushi’s chin when he stood on the tips of his toes to sniff at his neck. It made him sneeze, and the wolf jerked away.

“It’s pleasant to meet Muro-chin,” Atsushi said, with a step away from the wolf. “But I have to bring this to my grandmother, so I can’t stay with Muro-chin right now.” 

Surprised, the wolf stood and watched him go. Though Atsushi didn’t realize it, his escape had been narrow and lucky; many a better man had been mauled by the wolves of the black forest.

Further into the forest, the trees blocked all light until he could barely see, and the rustling of rabbits in the bushes would make a normal man tremble in fear. But Atsushi was far from regular, and he walked through the darkness, through the forest, into a clearing with a quaint house. The sound of birds was all that he could hear.

When he knocked on the door, a blonde man answered it. His eyes were narrow and beady, and regarded him with a squint.

“Aahh?” Atsushi questioned, tilting his head a little at the man in the doorway. “Where’s my grandmother?” 

The man let him in without a word, and guided him to the living room with a hand on his back. It was cold and unpleasant, but if he was there, Atsushi’s grandmother must have know him.

“She’s sleeping,” The man offered when Atsushi sat down, a cup full of something he had never had before in his hands. “You mustn’t wake her.”

The drink was warm and slightly sour, and hit the back of his throat unpleasantly. His face twisted into a frown, but he swallowed it out of politeness.

“Grandmother never sleeps this early,” Atsushi said, though his words slurred together as the world turned slightly fuzzy. The knife the man brandished looked slightly fuzzy (logically, he knew it was very sharp), but so did Muro-chin’s ears when they popped up in front of him and the wolf in question tackled the man to the ground. The couch was much too comfy to move from in his fuzzy state, and he could only hear the sound of an angry growl and a whimper that cut off abruptly. Sleep took him.

The world was less fuzzy when it came back to him, and the smell of strawberry tarts surrounded him. He was still on the couch, but his head was cushioned by someone’s legs, and a tail was curled possessively towards his face.

“Muro-chin,” He groaned quietly as his head drove a sharp spike of pain through his mind, turning to look at the wolf. He sat nervously, hands folded on Atsushi’s shoulder as he watched Atsushi’s grandmother sharply.

“Don’t look so nervous,” She admonished fondly, neither of them having heard Atsushi over the sound of the fire roaring to cook the pastries. “I know your kind isn’t meant to be alone, so I don’t know why you are, but we’re not bad people.”

And it was odd, at least to Atsushi (who had been surrounded by the village all his life, even if they weren’t his best friends), that Himuro (who was very pretty, and in his opinion also friendly) was alone.

“Muro-chin is alone?” He asked louder, sitting up as he dragged Himuro into an embrace simultaneously. Himuro’s ears were soft when he leaned on him. “That’s no good.”

Himuro’s reply was muffled by Atsushi’s chest at first, then by the sweet raspberry tart he was forced to try when Atsushi let go.

“Then I’ll stay with Muro-chin, because Muro-chin wouldn’t have come if he didn’t like me,” Atsushi decided, rubbing Himuro’s ears with one big hand, making his cynical look falter. “Then we both won’t be alone.”

Later, Himuro looked back with no idea how it had come to pass that Atsushi had coaxed him into making a new, bigger den for the two of them (Atsushi was too tall to fit in the old one), or how he’d been coerced into holding hands on a regular basis, or how he ended up feeding pastries to Atsushi in bed.

He also didn’t know how he’d gone from wanting to eat Atsushi to wanting to kiss him instead, or how he became addicted to sweet fruity kisses and big hands that lazily petted him, but when he thought about it, he wouldn’t pick any other fate.


End file.
